Keeping the Community Warm

Leadership here at ACME and several other key figures worked hard, overnight after winter storm Nika took down over 600,000 people’s power supply. When Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, over 800,000 people lost their power then. With that being said, we knew we needed to help and we wanted to. We made sure that all of stores were up and running with power, reached out to associates to see who needed help and then opened our help up to the community and our customers. Setting up free charging stations in all of our 110 stores from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, Delaware and our few Maryland stores. Many of the communities around our stores were without power. Anyone who needed the power was welcomed to come into the store to charge up their electronic devices as they needed. Free of charge.

In addition to the charging stations, we ended up with a few extra generators after our stores were up and running. See the story below from 6 ABC on what President of ACME, Jim Perkins volunteered to do for the surrounding areas. We appreciate all the help we received to make Jim’s wish a reality.

From 6ABC

ACME Markets helps seniors stay warm in Delaware County

MEDIA, Pa. – February 6, 2014 (WPVI) — A Delaware County grocery store is helping seniors stay warm after losing power in this week’s ice storm.

The president of Acme Markets contacted to Action News Thursday morning wanting to help someone without power. The store president had ordered too many generators.

Action News reached out to a senior living community in Delaware County.

“He’s our hero,” said Linda Sterhous. “When he arrived on the campus, we were all ready to give him a hug and a kiss.”

Linda Sterhous was talking about Acme Market’s President Jim Perkins.

Sterhous runs Martins Run Senior living Community in Media.

Martins Run lost power around 8:00 a.m. Wednesday following the ice storm.

The 22 acre facility has 16 buildings and houses 300 seniors, some of them in critical care and assisted living.

“Since then our building has slowly been losing heat. We do have some generator power here for critical areas, but not complete generator power,” said Sterhous.

After ordering generators for many of his stores that lost power, Jim Perkins had several extra.

“All of our acme stores are on power or generator power now, because people need to shop. So as they come up on power, we already have the generator rented for the week, so why not pass it along to someone who needs it in the community,” said Perkins.

The generators are capable of running a grocery store or a hospital, and the tight knit community of Martins Run are very grateful.

“With each day that goes by and each hour that goes by the building is getting colder, and it is getting a little more serious for these people who are at risk for hypothermia,” said Sterhous.

“We love helping the community and we appreciate the opportunity to do that. It was so much fun to walk through here today and talk with all the seniors and thinking that we are going to get their heat back on rewarding to do that,” said Perkins.

Acme Markets donated two generators to Martins Run. They also loaned a generator to the Malvern Fire Company.